Every Business Has A Story...

New Month, New Ideas...

2010-03-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

March - the month that's supposed to come in like a lion and out like a lamb... well, maybe except for here in the great Pacific Northwest. Up here, we're enjoying the latest beautiful day in the mildest winter many of us can remember in a long time. Thanks to El Nino, it's been smooth sailing here. But everyone else out there? The lion's roaring.

But slowly, the calendar continues to turn. Soon, we'll all be defrosting and doing what we do well - helping our customers tell their stories. Here at PI, I've been busy as well, working with some suppliers to find out new ways to help you do that. Here's my first one today - and I'll be introducing more in the coming weeks.

One way to make yourself memorable when you visit a client or prospect is to appeal to more than one of their senses. While an in-house meeting may be good for appealing to the sense of hearing and sight, the most memorable sense memories are generated by your nose and your tongue. Here's an experiment to try. Close your eyes and think of chocolate chip cookies. Remember that smell, the taste of a warm choclate chip cookie in your mouth. I'm guessing when you thought of that, you immediately remembered the time you had that cookie - what the kitchen looked like, what you were doing, etc.

As a sales professional, this knowledge is power - and you can harness this knowledge make it work for you. You can even use chocolate chip cookies to do so! I work with a company named Thanks-a-Dozen. They specialize in custom printed food boxes - boxes you can carry donuts and cookies in and that you can deliver to your clients. The exteriors of the boxes are printed in brilliant full color, to show your message - to tell your clients and prospects your story!

Bring these with you on multiple sales calls, and you'll find yourself not only welcome, but anticipated (one salesperson we know uses these to make a sales call once a month to one of his clients; when he was late to that meeting due to a last minute out-of-town trip, he found a voice-mail from the office manager, saying they had missed him that morning, and checking to make sure that he was OK)!

I'd love to show you these in person. Interested? Give me a call and I'll deliver you one of the boxes and a half-dozen gourmet donuts, and show you how effective a sales tool they can be.

Time for me to deliver one of these donut boxes to a client. I'll write more later. Until then, stay safe, and remember - it's your story, I'm just here to help you tell it.

First Impressions

2010-01-11T06:34:00.000-08:00

I arrived yesterday afternoon in Las Vegas in anticipation of the PPAI Expo, which starts this morning. This gave me a chance to look around a bit and make some observations:

- They Haven't Given Up. Despite the horrendous economic conditions here, they are still building - mostly revenue generating projects, like the City Center project on the strip. It may be that some of these projects had too much inertia to be stopped by the economic tsunami, but seeing a project like that going up means there are still jobs, and thus still hope in the area.

- They Are Trying Harder. I have stayed at the Excalibur each year for the 5 years I've been coming to the convention. In previous years, I was not thrilled with what I had here - dingy rooms, dusty hallways with burnt out lights, a hotel casino with almost no amenities. This time - what a difference. New carpet, brighter color scheme, and tons of amenities included - and all at a daily rate that is less than what a Motel 6 would cost me in Seattle. It's obvious - they want my business, and they are willing to do what is reasonably necessary to get it.

- They Are Being Creative. At the Excalibur, the hotel buffet has a $29 special - all you can eat - all day. That's right - for 24 hours, yiu can have breakfast, lunch, second breakfast, sevenses, dinner, supper, late evening nosh, and any other meal you can think of - and only have paid once. This is thinking outside the box. The same applies to the gaming floor - a "party pit" area that combines gambling, dancing, drink specials, musical acts, designed to attract younger gamblers.

All of these indicate a desire to not only reduce costs, but also to provide a much better value for their customers.

So here's the question. In a down economy, these are things that any of us can choose to implement. So how many of them have you done?

In Pursuit of Success

2010-01-07T17:31:00.000-08:00

Success.

All of us want it. Even if we define success differently, we all want to achieve it.

For Perfect Impressions, we define success in two ways:

1) Helping our clients achieve their success through communicating their stories to their desired audiences; and

2) Finding new and different ways of storytelling each year and letting our clients know about these so they can shape their stories and communicate even better.

Next week, we're heading off to Las Vegas to work on our second success story. Each year, the Promotional Products Association International (otherwise known as PPAI) holds a convention and trade show, where members of the industry can get together, discuss current issues and trends, get additional training, and see what new products and ideas suppliers are rolling out.

It's a BIG show (over 2,000 exhibitors), with a lot to see. But I'm looking forward to attending this year.

I'm even more excited about sharing this with you. I'll be blogging daily about what I've seen and heard, and I'll pass the ideas I've found to be most interesting.

Of course, I'm also interested in helping you. If there is something you'd like me to research while I'm there (what campaigns have or have not worked well for your industry, A certain product you have an interest in using to tell your story), please drop me an e-mail at info@pipromotions.com and I'll be sure to find out for you.

I'll also be appearing tomorrow at the Good Morning Snohomish County Networking Breakfast at the Lynnwood Convention Center. Stop by to discuss new trends in physical marketing and more.

Have an outstanding weekend.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin', Keep Your Story Rollin'

2010-01-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

Marketing comes in all shapes and sizes, all in the name of getting a business name or product in front of the customer.

One of the tactics used in advertising is identifying where your customer will be when he or she realizes they need your product. Advertising industry thinking used to be that, behind the wheel, they were thinking of the next place to fill up, eat, sleep or visit. That's changed. Dramatically.

In our "modern" times, we're as likely to view the car as a mobile office as transportation. While multitasking while driving may be unhealthy and downright dangerous, it still is a fact, and advertisers are responding. But how to get their message to you?

They've tried radio - but the explosion of satellite commercial free radio, the popularity of non-commercial NPR type stations (KUOW-FM is the the highest rated station in the greater Seattle market), and the ability to plug in your iPod into the car stereo diminsh that avenue. Billboards are seen in most places as urban blight, and are restricted, if not outright banned.

Given these realities, how could a company tell their story to drivers in their cars.

A few years back, a smart person in the industry realized that there is a lot of free space on the sides of vehicles - specifically trucks and buses. So they started doing billboards on the side of buses and large graphics on the sides of trucks...

But why stop there... as this article in the NY Times points out.

Your Ad Here, on My S.U.V.? And You’ll Pay? - New York Times

Of course, this means you are using your vehicle to tell someone else's story. It's at a price - they rent your vehicle's exterior from you.

But if you're considering using your vehicle as a rolling marketing message, why not use it to tell your story instead?

If you are interested in being a billboard for someone else, here's the link to FreeCarMedia to find out more info.

If you'd like to learn about using your vehicle to specifically tell your story, here's a link to Signs Now in Mill Creek, WA. They are a company specializing in large outdoor graphics, including vehicle graphic wraps.

Remember - it's your story. This is just one way we'll help you tell it.

Welcome to our window...

2010-01-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our new home on the web!

Here's a question for you.

How well are you telling your story?

In this world of millions of messages bombarding us continually, where everyone just tunes out those messages, how effectively is your message getting heard and remembered?

At Perfect Impressions, we're always looking for different ways to tell our clients and friends about the better ways to tell their story. This blog is one of those tools.

In here, we'll share all sorts of information with you:

Successful ideas that others have used to promote their businesses
New products available to you
Seasonal specials and sales on products you may already use.
New services we've added to serve your business better.

All of this with our dedication to personal service that is the hallmark of our company.

We invite you to take a look around and try us out for a bit. Your comments are always welcome, of course, and if you have a more direct question, please feel free to e-mail us right away.

So again, welcome to our newest project - and remember

Every Business Has A Story - We Help You Tell Yours

Thanks for letting us be of service to you again!

Don